| b0o-awesome | 111111111x111111111 is? | 15:52 |
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| b0o-awesome | oh | 15:53 |
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| sebsebseb | hi | 16:16 |
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| jcastro | *tap tap* | 17:21 |
| jcastro | this thing on? | 17:21 |
| jcastro | 10 minutes until Q+A with Allison Randall, the Ubuntu Technical Architect! | 17:21 |
| mikesanderson78 | ? | 17:22 |
| === ChanServ changed the topic of #ubuntu-classroom to: Welcome to the Ubuntu Classroom - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Classroom || Support in #ubuntu || Upcoming Schedule: http://is.gd/8rtIi || Questions in #ubuntu-classroom-chat || Current Session: Q and A with Allison Randall, Ubuntu Technical Architect - Instructors: wendar | ||
| jcastro | welcome to our weekly Q+A sessions with engineering folks in Ubuntu | 17:32 |
| jcastro | this week we have Allison Randall, the Ubuntu Software Architect | 17:32 |
| jcastro | as always, please post your questions in #ubuntu-classroom-chat | 17:32 |
| jcastro | wendar: ok, introduce yourself and take it away! | 17:32 |
| wendar | greetings programs! | 17:34 |
| wendar | I see interesting questions coming through | 17:35 |
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| jcastro | QUESTION: What does being the Ubuntu Software architect mean? What do you do? | 17:37 |
| wendar | The technical architect is a new role for Ubuntu. | 17:38 |
| wendar | I was brought in as a cross-hire from another open source project Parrot. | 17:39 |
| wendar | I've been the Chief Architect there for 5 years. | 17:39 |
| wendar | There are several pieces to a software architect role. | 17:39 |
| wendar | A big one is being the person with the "overall" view. | 17:40 |
| wendar | Most people focus on one piece of the distribution, the desktop, server, particular applications, etc. | 17:40 |
| wendar | But, that means that sometimes things slip through the cracks because they're outside the core focus of all the little teams. | 17:41 |
| wendar | Or, that things get missed because they involve 2 or more teams, who don't have good visibility into what the others are doing. | 17:41 |
| wendar | Another aspect of an architect role is planning for the future. | 17:42 |
| wendar | Not just "heads down" to the next release, but where do we need to be 2, 5, 10, 20 years from now. | 17:43 |
| wendar | next question, jorge | 17:43 |
| jcastro | Question: So what will Wayland mean for the future of Ubuntu. Could it help Wine with OpenGL based games? | 17:43 |
| wendar | You've probably seen Mark's post on Ubuntu's intention to adopt Wayland in the future. | 17:44 |
| wendar | In the short-term Wayland isn't quite ready, so we won't be using it in Natty, or even the "O" release. | 17:45 |
| wendar | In the longer-term, Wayland has great potential. | 17:45 |
| wendar | Wayland was designed with security as a central focus, so it makes more advanced sandboxing possible. | 17:46 |
| wendar | It's lighter than X, because it's a more minimal subset of features. | 17:46 |
| wendar | Performance improvements, especially on netbooks, etc are critical. | 17:47 |
| wendar | On Wine/OpenGL, a lot depends on what those projects decide to do with Wayland. | 17:48 |
| wendar | So, I can't predict, but I hope it solves some of the problems there. | 17:48 |
| wendar | next | 17:48 |
| jcastro | cheller> QUESTION: What is Ubuntu's plan/strategy for HPC in the coming years? | 17:48 |
| wendar | great question :) | 17:49 |
| wendar | I'll take a bit of a historical step back there first. | 17:49 |
| wendar | It's intersting to watch how technology has grown over the decades, our phones today have as much power as a "supercomputer" several decades ago. | 17:50 |
| wendar | So, in some sense HPC is a false categorization. | 17:51 |
| wendar | And there's also some question whether monolithic "super computers" are the future of high-performance. | 17:52 |
| wendar | Or, if we're approaching the limits (in terms of the laws of physics) on monolithic hardware, and so the future of high performance is actually cloud architectures. | 17:52 |
| wendar | Our focus in Ubuntu is on two fronts: | 17:53 |
| wendar | - Improving performance of the bare metal install | 17:53 |
| wendar | That benefits all installs of ubuntu (whether monolithic or cloud) | 17:54 |
| wendar | - Actively developing Ubuntu as both host and guest for cloud architectures | 17:54 |
| wendar | With special focus on the ease of use in cloud architectures, which really *should be* as easy to administer as monolithic architectures (but currently are rather a pain to work with) | 17:55 |
| wendar | next | 17:55 |
| jcastro | kim0> QUESTION: Why do you think mobile OSs like iOS and Android are picking up developers and apps perhaps faster than most desktop OSs. What's Ubuntu's strategy to keep up | 17:55 |
| wendar | That's something I've been thinking a lot about lately. | 17:57 |
| wendar | There are several working theories on what attracts developers to a platform. | 17:57 |
| wendar | One is to provide easy-to-use tools. That developers avoid pain, and so will flock to the easy path. | 17:58 |
| wendar | That's partly true, and it's something we have immediate and long term plans to work on. | 17:59 |
| wendar | Take a look at Quickly for a good example. | 17:59 |
| wendar | We have some more changes coming for that in Natty that will make it much easier to get your Quickly applications distributed in the Software Center. | 18:00 |
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| wendar | In the longer term, Ubuntu (and a whole bunch of other Linux-based environments) is looking at the toolchain in a deeper way. | 18:00 |
| wendar | Not just for a patch here and there, but to really see the developer experience as a whole and remove the pain points. | 18:01 |
| wendar | That's something I'm particularly interested in, having spent the past 10 years working toward an "easy" developer experience in Parrot. | 18:01 |
| wendar | But, the "ease of development" is only part of the story. | 18:02 |
| wendar | I don't know if you've used iOS or Android developer tools, but they're still a long way from "easy" | 18:02 |
| wendar | An easy, well integrated, social developer experience is more along the lines of scratch.mit.edu | 18:03 |
| wendar | So, there's another layer to look at, and that is "what motivates developers to target a platform even despite the pain" | 18:03 |
| wendar | I could talk for an hour on that alone, but I'll summarize | 18:04 |
| wendar | - Developers want people to use their software, so they'll go for a sympathetic audience | 18:05 |
| wendar | Ubuntu has a large number of users, so it's growing to the point that it's appealing for new app development | 18:05 |
| wendar | - Developers want to feel connected with their users, so the new Ratings and Reviews feature in Natty is an important step forward | 18:07 |
| wendar | (that feedback in iOS and Android is a big part of their success) | 18:07 |
| wendar | - Developers want instant gratification | 18:07 |
| wendar | It's a huge damper on motivation if you write a quick app in a weekend, and then have to wait 2 weeks (or worse, 6 months) before anyone sees it | 18:08 |
| wendar | so, there's a good bit of work going on now to improve the developer experience with submissions, so they get apps up in days | 18:09 |
| wendar | and with some good sandboxing for safety, we can get those days of review down to minutes | 18:09 |
| wendar | I better say 'next' | 18:09 |
| jcastro | om26er> QUESTION: which team are you part of? | 18:09 |
| wendar | I'm on the Ubuntu Engineering team | 18:10 |
| wendar | I'm a peer of Jason Warner (Desktop Manager), Robbie Williamson (Server Manager), Kate Stewart (Release Manager) | 18:11 |
| wendar | And report to Rick Spencer (Ubuntu Engineering Director) | 18:11 |
| wendar | next | 18:11 |
| jcastro | mhall119> QUESTION: Since you brought it up, where do we need to be 2, 5, 10 and 20 years from now? | 18:12 |
| wendar | Linux has traditionally played a little of a "catch up" role. | 18:13 |
| wendar | Like, we're trying to implement features that other operating systems have already implemented. | 18:13 |
| wendar | That seems a little odd, when you think about it. | 18:14 |
| wendar | Free software is actually a very agile space. | 18:14 |
| wendar | It has a very high pace of evolution. | 18:15 |
| wendar | That is, having more than one way to do things is actually an advantage in pushing forward the state technology. | 18:15 |
| wendar | We can rapidly try out 5 different ways to solve a problem, and then pick the best one and move on to the next generation. | 18:15 |
| wendar | But, we aren't using that unique evolutionary advantage as well as we could. | 18:16 |
| wendar | Linux shouldn't be following other OS's, we should be leading. | 18:16 |
| wendar | That means deciding where we want technology to be 20 years from now, and actively making that reality happen. | 18:17 |
| wendar | the 2, 5, and 10 years are all steps toward the future of technology | 18:17 |
| * wendar debating whether to go into specifics | 18:18 | |
| wendar | better move on for time | 18:18 |
| jcastro | <subroot> QUESTION: why the ubuntu team dont make something "unique", not importing things from Windows and Mac OSx?? | 18:18 |
| wendar | (feel free to chat with me on freenode at any time, btw) | 18:19 |
| wendar | Yes, exactly! | 18:19 |
| wendar | So, I see Unity as a good example of this phenomenon. | 18:19 |
| wendar | It's a bit of a change of pace in the desktop environment. | 18:20 |
| ClassBot | There are 10 minutes remaining in the current session. | 18:20 |
| wendar | Not just "what should Linux be like", but "what should the computing experience be like". | 18:20 |
| wendar | It's something unique to Ubuntu, and an evolutionary step forward. | 18:21 |
| wendar | Not the highest evolved state (we've got decades ahead), but a great next step. | 18:21 |
| wendar | next | 18:21 |
| jcastro | om26er> QUESTION: for what I have seen there have been nothing done to boot performance work after 10.04 although the release notes of 10.10 claimed boot performance but I followed many blueprints closely and there was no work done on that side, are there any future plans on the boots speed. | 18:21 |
| wendar | There's a standard statistical curve around performance improvements. | 18:22 |
| wendar | The first set of improvements yield big gains for small effort. | 18:22 |
| wendar | As you go on, you get smaller and smaller gains for greater effort. | 18:23 |
| wendar | We assessed boot speed at the begining of the Natty cycle, and determined that although more gains were possible, they were relatively low impact. | 18:23 |
| wendar | That is, the greatest slow downs now aren't the boot, but starting up services after the boot. | 18:24 |
| wendar | I.e. what we need is more general performance fixes across the board. | 18:24 |
| wendar | next | 18:25 |
| jcastro | <kim0> QUESTION: What's your view on where cloud computing is taking the world. Now that IaaS is almost nailed, is Platform as a Service what everyone actually wants | 18:25 |
| jcastro | (one more after this) | 18:25 |
| ClassBot | There are 5 minutes remaining in the current session. | 18:25 |
| wendar | briefly | 18:25 |
| wendar | I'm pretty well convinced that future technology is going to be centered on distributed processing rather than monolithic processing. | 18:26 |
| wendar | But, we haven't hit the even horizon yet. | 18:27 |
| wendar | event horizon | 18:27 |
| wendar | And cloud technology needs to be much easier to use before it can become truly universal. | 18:27 |
| wendar | next | 18:27 |
| jcastro | mhall119> QUESTION: How about getting developers of things like "Angry Birds" making their apps available on Ubuntu? | 18:27 |
| jcastro | last one *chirp* | 18:27 |
| wendar | I would love to have Angry Birds ported to Ubuntu. | 18:28 |
| wendar | I'm one of the board members on the new Application Review Board. | 18:28 |
| wendar | where we work on the "fast" process for lightweight apps like that to get into the Software Center | 18:29 |
| wendar | If you know an app developer who's interested in making a lightweight app, put them in touch with us. | 18:29 |
| wendar | end | 18:29 |
| jcastro | (Like making Places for Unity!) | 18:29 |
| jcastro | ok thanks everyone for participating but we are out of time | 18:30 |
| jcastro | thanks allison! *clap* *clap* | 18:30 |
| wendar | thanks all for the great questions | 18:30 |
| ClassBot | Logs for this session will be available at http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2011/02/18/%23ubuntu-classroom.html | 18:30 |
| === ChanServ changed the topic of #ubuntu-classroom to: Welcome to the Ubuntu Classroom - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Classroom || Support in #ubuntu || Upcoming Schedule: http://is.gd/8rtIi || Questions in #ubuntu-classroom-chat || | ||
| jcastro | hey alright, smoke if you got em | 18:30 |
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